warm

by cimorene

it was getting dark faster than it was getting late. gulls were swooping lower over the sand dunes and dusk was sweeping in like a gray blanket over the ocean,

but orli wasn't getting out of the water. he was a pale smudge of a speck on the crest of the next black wave. every crash on the shore swallowed him with foam. elijah tapped his fingers on the silvered gold wood of the deck rail in the gathering gloom and gazed blankly at the vast majestic sweeps of colors on the canvas of the sky. he tore another crust off a piece of bread, tossed it into the air. the slowest sea gull hadn't gotten a piece yet, but hovered high on the edge of the cloud of birds.

it was like a veil of arched gray wings and fierce little beaks between him and orli. he wondered if they'd follow him, when he finally ran down the beach after his friend.

it was cold enough up here where he could barely feel the salt spray, in the cold breeze plastering his wet trunks to his legs. the flag had only been yellow when they arrived, but of course, there wasn't a lifeguard.

the sky was turning black along the horizon, clouds whipped up high like glowering mounds of dusky whipped cream, melting on the edges and clawing towards him, rushing so fast he could see the movement. the ocean tossed and churned underneath, hard as slate, tumultous.

he couldn't see orli's face, but orli would be smiling.

a gull screamed and the air ripped on the sound; his hair flew into his eyes, cold and stinging and scraping. he left the deck, sun stored in the boards of the walk scorching his feet as he flew over it. "orli!"

there was no way to tell if orli had heard you, most of the time. he did what he liked, spectacularly immoved and immovable, like an elf: elijah liked that about him. elijah wasn't sure, when orli's head lifted and he finally rode a wave all the way in, if it was because he'd heard at all.

and there was that audacious grin splitting the tan of his face under the short bristles of dark hair. they were standing where there'd been no water a few minutes ago; now the waves tossed and seethed, smacked into the backs of orli's legs almost hard enough to knock him over and pull him down. elijah said, "it's going to storm," and grabbed orli's wrist to drag him along.

orli, graceful elf-orli, didn't stumble in the uneven damp sand even as the rain that had been brooding over them first spattered down, then rushed from the sky faster and faster. by the time they reached the shelter again they were practically swimming, and the sky had darkened to the color it wouldn't reach till 8 pm or so on a clear day this far into summer. sheet-lightning in the not-so-distant distance lit the shelter intermittently. orli was trembling violently.

elijah swore. "fuck. how cold WAS that water?"

orli shrugged and grinned, but elijah was pretty sure--though he couldn't see, in the flash of darkness--that orli's teeth were chattering. all the towels they'd brought with them--which is to day, two, both already damp, weren't quite enough to warm him, even curled on the no-longer-so-warm sun-warmed bench on the far side of the shelter, furthest from the gusting of the wind.

he watched elijah with bright black eyes and grinned when their eyes met, and laughed when lij scolded him, "you're a fucking IDIOT, orli!"

"i didn't want to get out," he shrugged. "i'll be fine."

"when you come back to life!"

"i'm not dead."

"not YET." orli just looked at him mischievously--and here was the kicker--looked UP at him, from under wet eyelashes. his little wet mouth, pale and almost gray with the cold, twisted up in a smile and he looked positively wicked. elijah frowned harder and turned around. and didn't think about orli's lip. or about orli biting it. or about elijah biting it.

no.

the seagulls had started to lose interest, but hadn't quite given up: they were scattered on the ground, picking idly at the sand in the shadow of the deck, raising their heads in the wind. their feathers were lifted by the strong wind.

it was almost worth going back to the jeep, but putting up the top would take too long, and then it'd be cramped and damp and quickly hot; here it was cold, but not too bad. and then, they could always go in the bathroom.

"LIJAH," said orli, and elijah whirled around probably too fast, always too much, too nervous--

and said, "what?"

"stop pacing." just his eyes and his nose showed; he'd hunched deeper in the damp towels. "sit DOWN." his eyes indicated the bench next to him. he would have patted it, but was wrecked with another set of shivers just then.

elijah sat down, finally. "you're really cold. maybe we should go out of the wind,..." he said slowly. he knew what orli would say.

he was already shaking his head emphatically, "no, i like it here. i'll be fine. just need to get my blood flowing again."

"a different kind of flowing from the kind you were going to get by swimming even though the water was cold?"

orli didn't even pause. "of course."

elijah rolled his eyes. "of course."

and then another gust of wind, whipping across the sand with enough force you could almost imagine the waves rushing flat in its wake. sand gritted the air and elijah winced involuntarily.

meanwhile, orli was wracked with a long shuddering shiver, and elijah's attention was claimed. goddammit. he turned sideways and said, inexplicably high-keyed and annoyed, "you're really cold!"

orli started to protest again, through chattering teeth, "really, it's--"

but too late. elijah was thinking, now, fast if not sensibly. and what he thought was mostly about blood moving, and only a little, of course, about orli's mouth. his hand was on orli's arm through the damp towel. then he peeled the towel back, and orli made a little noise, maybe at the wind touching his skin again, but it didn't seem to be a protest. then he made another noise, a moment later, when lij opened his lips against the cold salt of his neck. more of a "lij" than before, of course, or a grunt, not the little questioning sound of before, and elijah smiled and shifted closer, peeling the towel further back, and bit at orli's throat just above the hollow. then again. he thought he could almost taste blood, licked the spot idly, sucked next to it and stroked at orli's hipbones, down in the damp warming tent of the towels.

no protest, anymore: orli tilted his head back wantonly, and, well. THIS was easy. if a bit cold, and sticky.

his hands felt clammy on the feverish warm skin of orli's stomach under the towels, and then there was a fierce clambering as he slid awkwardly into orli's lap and they pulled the towels back around them, but they kept falling down.

"fuck," orli muttered. lij wriggled closer until his knees pushed against the wood behind orli's hips hard enough to get splinters. orli gave up on trying to clutch the towel closer then and grabbed lij's hips instead, panic, holding on as elijah ground down into his lap with a long slow teasing burn that made him bite his lip. orli muttered in a throaty mumble again, "FUCK, lij,"

and elijah shocked himself--well, at least he shocked orli, and he was thinking distantly maybe he should be shocked or maybe not--by laughing against the skin under orli's ear and saying roughly, "sounds good to me," and suckling the lobe there, with another little nip.

orli made a strangled noise, and his fingernails, wet, cold-clammy-pruned fingers, dug into elijah's waist. then orli was licking a long hot damp trail up elijah's neck, and elijah was squirming almost enough to make it impossible for his swim shorts to be shoved out of the way, but soon enough orli's hand, cold and thin, was wrapped around his hot cock. elijah's eyes were closed, which turned all the sensation into series after series of hot and cold shivers, hard and gritting sand and places that were going to hurt, later, but couldn't yet. no sight, just different shades of black and red, and a quick warm brush on his mouth that he turned his head away from instinctively even as he arched his back, grinding into the roll of orli's hips, the hot nudge of orli's cock on his ass through layers of wet fabric and orli's hand on him a warm damp claw, clinging awkwardly with sticky saltiness.

it was too cold, and with his eyes closed the wind was so strong and erratic he didn't know if he was right-side-up or sideways or inside-out, even, and when he looked it wasn't a lot better. he let his eyelashes flutter down again on the sight of orli's flushed face thrown back. it was better not to see, and to come hard and fast with orli's hand around him, to snake his own hand down in orli's pants and finish him with a few clumsy swift jerks.

there was a weird stillness, then, stickiness everywhere, and they were close enough to the bathroom, but it felt odd to wash off come when you're still covered with salt and sand. elijah didn't move, didn't climb away or slump forward. his back was starting to hurt from the force of all the muscles clenched too tight--stomach, too, the back of his neck, his head. and now he was starting to feel the weather again, but he dug up a smile somewhere, and said without quite looking at orli: "are you warm?"

End